We all know the importance of gratitude, but for our littles, the emotional regulation required to maintain a thankful heart can be a difficult and confusing aspect of child development. Take, for example, a toddler during snack time. When grapes and cheese are served on the blue plate instead of the green plate, it feels like the end of the world! Thinks every toddler ever: “How can I be grateful for food when it’s NOT ON THE RIGHT PLATE?!”
The good news is this: by offering specific prompts that guide your child toward gratitude, our kids can learn to manage those complicated feelings in a positive way. In fact, recent child development researchers found that the more a five-year-old could access gratitude, the more they also understood emotions and other people’s perspectives. In other words, the development of gratitude is closely linked to a child’s early emotional awareness and perspective-taking – among other benefits. Yes, even as young as age five!
“It is largely agreed that gratitude is not inbuilt; instead it develops over time, as certain capacities become available and cognitive abilities mature,” write researchers Blaire Morgan and Liz Gulliford in the new book Developing Gratitude in Children and Adolescents. It “require[s] a great deal of practice.”
As you walk through the below practices with your child, you’ll not only experience the benefits brought by gratitude yourself, but you’ll also provide an example of how to utilize this incredibly useful life skill in everyday situations. Ready to brush up on an attitude of gratitude? Let’s go!
Try the calendar chronicles.
Print our perpetual calendar here (or use your own!), and introduce a new family rhythm: The Calendar Chronicles. Daily, together with your child, write, doodle, or draw something small you enjoyed that day: splashing in the rain, mailing a letter to Grandma, finishing a great read-aloud, or trying a new muffin recipe.
Why it Matters: We know the heavy bulk of research that points to the importance of a gratitude journal, but many of us fall short when it comes to implementing a family practice of documenting it. By starting small with a simple, no-fail tradition, you’re not only introducing your child to the seasonal rhythms of an annual calendar, but you’re aiding him/her (and you!) in the formation of an essential habit: counting blessings day after day.
Variation: Encourage your child to take ownership over this practice all on his/her own! Complete your calendar chronicles independently, then compare notes with each other at the end of the week. Marvel at how differently enjoyable your experiences were!
Related Reading for Parents: Hardwiring Happiness, by Rick Hanson
Guess the Inventor
Talk to your child about how everything in your home was made somewhere and by someone! Point out a few objects as examples, e.g., a t-shirt made in China, a puzzle from Indonesia, or a locally-made mug, and introduce each location on a map. Next, bring in a few items from outdoors like leaves, sticks, or flowers. Talk about the difference between manufactured and natural objects. Can your child guess which object is which?
Why it Matters: Want to curb entitlement before it starts? Peel back the curtain on where, how, and when our things were made. By teaching our children that every object has an origin story, we’re modeling a world in which sustainability, gratitude, and greater responsibility are heavily considered within our own four walls.
Challenge: Ask your child if he/she can imagine how the manufactured items were made. Research to see if he/she is correct! (Start with this classic video of how crayons are made, if you’d like.)
Related Read-Aloud: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
Tackle the 5 Thanks
Introduce your child to 5 different ways to say “thank you” in a variety of foreign languages: Xièxiè (Chinese), Gracias (Spanish), Merci (French), Danke (German), and Grazie (Italian). Commit to using each in everyday scenarios with your child as you both learn together!
Why it Matters: Immersion learning is the single most effective way to learn a foreign language. By practicing simple phrases like hello, thank you, and please with your child daily, you’re laying the foundation for him/her to better decipher the many different intonations and cadences of any given language. Bonus? The simple repetition of “thank you” in multiple forms will help deepen your own neural pathway toward gratitude!
Challenge: Want to take this practice a step further? Learn 31 ways to say thank you here!
Related Reading for Parents: Do Parents Matter? by Robert A. LeVine & Sarah LeVine
Try this Montessori Trick
The next time you’re setting out a glass of juice at snack time or a paint palette for a craft activity, remember this classic Montessori phrase: “Only fill up what I’m willing to clean up.”
Why it Matters: Spills happen. By preparing for the inevitable, you’ll be less reactive to the mess itself and have more capacity to walk your child through how best to clean it up. Bonus? The less we put in front of our children, the more they’re able to appreciate. While you’re managing your own sanity, you’re also offering your child a head start in early gratitude and resourcefulness.
Challenge: Begin teaching this phrase to your child, too! It’s an ideal boundary to place around playtime, e.g., “Only get out what I’m willing to put away.”
Related Reading for Parents: The Montessori Method, by Maria Montessori
Start a penny jar.
Grab a spare jar from the kitchen, and announce to your family a new project: The Penny Jar! Together, enlist everyone to stay on the lookout for spare change in parking lots, around the house, or on neighborhood walks. Any loose change collected at the end of the day goes into The Penny Jar. Over time, once it’s full, encourage the family to vote on what to spend its contents on. A pizza party with new neighbors? A donation to your local rescue mission? Your family, your rules!
Perfect for: Rhythms, Community Service, Family Connection, Social Skills
Why it Matters: Delayed gratification can be hard to teach in our modern, fast-paced world. By starting this family-wide tradition while your child is young, they’ll learn firsthand the importance of shared goals, compromise, and the value of a dollar. Let the games begin!
Challenge: Each week, let your child be in charge of sorting, organizing, and counting the loose change for a bonus math lesson! Can he/she predict how long it might take for everyone to collect enough change to fill the jar?
Related Reading: The Penny Pot, by Stuart J. Murphy
Remember: we all have stormy days, including your child. Your little person has powerful emotions, yes? But by guiding our kids in honing the practice of gratitude, we’re offering them a way to help understand and respond to these emotions well – one step at a time.
p.s. Want to put all of the above into practice – and then some? It’s never too early for a kids’ gratitude journal! Start taking note with our downloadable version here! With space to doodle or write (and with enough pages to share back and forth with a parent!), your littles will be well on their way to unearthing hidden beauty every single day of the week.